MLB Insider: The agony of the eggs-tacy

Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Russell Martin, left, holds up the baseball on a play at the plate. Martin's presence behind the plate has kept opponents from running wild on Bucs. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
— AP

Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Russell Martin, left, holds up the baseball on a play at the plate. Martin's presence behind the plate has kept opponents from running wild on Bucs. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
/ AP

Not to suggest any correlation with the Padres’ ever-improving home record, but when ballclubs come to San Diego these days, a few visiting players are feeling their belts working a lot like the fences at Petco Park.

That is, they’re tightening up.

Evidently, it’s not unusual for players with teams staying in the Gaslamp area to have breakfast at the Broken Yolk Café, where the Travel Channel show “Man vs. Food” once did a feature on the “Iron Man Omelet Challenge.” The challenge is for the diner to down a dozen-egg omelet, replete with enough potatoes and chili and cheese and biscuits to bring its total weight to six pounds. One-hour limit. No bathroom breaks.

Being big-league competitors, players from around the majors have heard about the eggs-stravaganza in San Diego and given it a go, according to Broken Yolk manager Flavio Villa. The tricky part is the timing, because you don't want to show up before a game at Petco with a bloated belly straight out of "Cool Hand Luke."

When the Miami Marlins were in town, relief pitcher A.J. Ramos waited until the day off between series at Petco Park and Dodger Stadium to accept the challenge.

"When they brought it out, it was on a damn pizza pan,” the 5-foot-10, 212-pound (pre-breakfast) Ramos told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “I ate all the eggs. Usually I'll eat six or seven eggs normally when I'm working out or training, but 12 eggs was pretty beastly, especially when I got to the potatoes and they started making me full. My stomach was hurting the rest of the day."

Villa said only “two to three percent” of those attempting the Iron Man omelet reach the finish line in time, if at all. The wall of fame remains devoid of photos of ballplayers who’ve challenged "The Challenge" and won.

“We get a lot of Padres in here, too,” said Villa, “but they don’t try it.”

Especially not the way they're running the bases this year.

P.S. Too bad the Kansas City Royals aren’t coming to town for interleague play. The nickname of their DH, Billy Butler, is “Country Breakfast."

Proper thievery

There’s not a lot missing from the skill set that Yoenis Cespedes brought with him from Cuba to the Oakland A’s, but his sliding technique leaves much to be desired. He’s frequently overshot the bag and injured his hand on one ill-executed slide.

No less an expert than Rickey Henderson was brought in to work with Cespedes. Above all, Rickey said, his student needs to start doing the math. Meaning, he has to count the steps between bags and figure out when to hit the dirt.

"He doesn't realize how fast he is, and doesn't recognize it until it's too late," Henderson said. "Céspedes has got to work on when to slide. Sometimes, you're just thinking about trying to get there, but you also have to figure out how many steps it is."

The sneak thief Rickey’s really waiting to see in the majors, along with everyone else, is Billy Hamilton. The steal-anytime-on-anyone speedster is still in the Reds minor-league system, which was where Henderson first saw him in person.